Call for Chapters – Geobanking in the world economy: exploring the links between States’ geoeconomic strategies, financial institutions and firms’ internationalization

Analyses of the financial system from various disciplines has yet to fully explore the connections between the geopolitical and geoeconomic discourses shaping States’ public finance and foreign policy, the role and localization of financial institutions and the evolution of international patterns of firms. Such topics are becoming increasingly relevant, as evidenced in a speech held by the UK Deputy Governor for Prudential Regulation. He focused on the term “geofinance”, which he described as the dynamic “impact of geography on the shape of banks, insurers and financial regulation […] With the revolution in regulation following the financial crisis coming to its end, and with changes to the geopolitical landscape looming large” he predicted that that geofinance will be “the defining challenge of the next few years”.

Building on this broad perspective, our edited collection focuses on “geobanking”, a term we chose to emphasize the various public and private aspects of banking that shape geopolitical trends and viceversa. Specifically, in our view, “geobanking” means a complex and multiscalar system including physical, social or digital spaces. Actors in the system are agents ranging from the international financial institutions (IFI, including the World Bank, European Investment Bank, etc.), to large financial players (Pension Funds, Sovereign Wealth Funds, Stock Exchanges), to private players such as Insurance, Advanced Service Financial Providers and international commercial banks, offshore banks, and smaller scale financial institution acting at local level (Local Banks, Cooperative Banking, etc). More recently new actors complimented such established system: these include Fintech, Islamic Finance, Frontier finance, Crowdfunding, Microfinance. “Geobanking” is shaping the World and the local landscapes of States and firms’ strategic behaviors ranging from large multinational corporations (MNC) and small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs).

In order to explore the systemic nature of “geobanking”, this edited collection aims at investigating the relationship between States’ foreign policy decisions guided by geo-economics, the evolution of IFI, their links with other kinds of financial institutions, domestic policies, and firms strategic decisions. We understand these relationships as a set of mutually inter-dependent processes of adaptation, synergies, incentives as well as threats and “dangerous relationships”.

We invite chapters from a variety of disciplines, including geography, business, regional development, organizational studies, political science, and economics.

Contributions will include, but will not be limited to:

Financial institutions in a broader geo-economic/geopolitical context, including the nexus between development practices, international financial institutions, and States’ foreign policy;

Spatial organization of financial institutions (both public and private), within and across States’ borders and potential geopolitical implications;

Relationship between the banking system and firms’ value chains/production networks and the role of Public policy;

Role of various type of financial institutions (from IFI to local banks) in the restructuring or developing of regional and national economies;

Theoretical chapters on the relationship between banking and geopolitics, i.e. “geobanking”.

If interested, please send an abstract up to 500 words to Silvia Grandi s.grandi@unibo.it and Christian Sellar csellar@olemiss.edu by January 15, 2018. Authors will be notified no later than end of February, 2018 on the decision over their abstracts.

Final submissions of accepted chapters should be between 6,000 and 12,000 words in length, excluding references, figures, tables, and appendices by April 15th, 2018. The book is to be completed by 2018, early 2019. The book proposal will be submitted to high level commercial publishers such as Palgrave, Routledge, Springer, and Edgar Elgar.

Patrons include the FINGEO network (www.fingeo.net) and the Working Group of the Association of Italian Geographers on the Internationalization of the Italian Economy and the Role of Financial Institutions in Shaping SME Value Chain.